One of the starkest realities of the human condition is that we live our lives painfully alone…we are beset by spiritual loneliness. It’s an ever present part of each of our souls…whether you are married or single…whether you come from a big family or a small family…whether you are a priest or a nun or a monk or a lay person…we all must deal at some point with the ache of spiritual loneliness.

It’s been charted throughout history. In the old Testament we hear that no one can see the face of God and live (exodus 33). Moses himself tries to see God in the burning bush only to have God tell him…stay back Moses…don’t come so close to me(exodus 3). This is such an odd reality…we want to be close to God and can never quite make it. No matter what…God is always a bit distant…veiled…partially hidden.

In the New Testament it happens too…this odd loneliness for God. Jesus himself on the cross cries out…my God my God why have you abandoned me (Matthew 27)…in other words…where are you…I need you. Even the disciples experience this…Mary Magdalene at the tomb…the first to learn of the resurrection…sees him but really doesn’t…she thinks he’s the gardener and asks where they have taken my Lord (John 20). This loneliness for God creeps along with us through salvation history as well. St. Augustine…arguably the most important theologian of the first millennia profoundly admits…you made us for yourself God and we are restless until we rest in you…in other words…our very nature is to be lonely for you God. And now today…you and me…who among us hasn’t been gripped by feelings of distance from God? Does he even know my thoughts…my heart…my anxieties…my prayers? I come here Sunday after Sunday and worship Him and I wonder if I know him any more today than I did ten…twenty…thirty years ago. I want to know Him at a deeper level…I’m lonely for God.

This is the spiritual thought I kept coming back to this week in considering my Christmas message for this year because spiritual loneliness might very well be the most important lesson of the Nativity. At Christmas God knows our loneliness and he comes to meet us.

I’ve heard it put this way…the whole Christian life is nothing more than the attempt to see God…to strip away the veil of our sinfulness…to move past our fears and fantasies of who God really is…to remove our facades…our caricatures of who we think we are…and to simply meet him face to face. This is it. This is what we’re trying to do in this whole project we call Church…we’re trying to meet God face to face. And Christmas is the very beginning of this most important spiritual work. Because over there in that Nativity we see him…we meet him…we find the solution to our spiritual loneliness…and this happens in the most unusual way.

Pope Benedict called the Nativity the School of Life because if you really look into it you will find the spiritual answers to the restlessness we deal with…the uncertainty…the spiritual loneliness by which we are all gripped. Because the Nativity is both sides of loneliness. The real loneliness of life and the answer to the loneliness.
The Nativity is amazing…complete fantasy and complete reality all at the same time. It’s just a model scene…contrived as a folly for us to smile at and feel warm in side and take family Christmas pictures in front of. And yet its honesty strips away the fantasy and meets this spiritual loneliness head on with an answer.

When we enter into the scene what do we find? A Baby. There’s nothing more honest than a baby. Babies never lie…they emote as they feel…crying…laughing…wiggling…staring all over the place in wonder. Babies know that they don’t have the answers to life…how could they…they can’t even construct sentences. Babies are defenseless…totally in need…unable to solve the problems...completely lonely by themselves. The Mom and Dad in the scene…poor…scared…uncertain about their future. The Shepherds…the day laborers of the first millennia…smelling of their sheep…dressed shabbily…uncertain of their futures too…probably living pay day to pay day. The Nativity Scene is spiritual loneliness in miniature…almost all of the same lonelinesses that you and I feel in our spiritual quandaries.

Then flip the scene to the other side of the loneliness…the answer…God with us. The Powerless baby is God who is beyond power itself. Emmanuel means God with us. In the utter helplessness of the Nativity Scene…in the utter helplessness of our lives…me too…in the spiritual loneliness…God meets this little family face to face…he meets us face to face. This is the real lesson of Christmas…not the egg nog…the new slippers…the x box…although these things are great on their own. But they’re surface…God with us is deep

God with us means that he knows what we are about…He knows what we’re good at…He sees when we do good and it makes him so happy. He also knows when we sin…when we cry…when our hearts break…when we grow old…when we are afraid of going off to college…when we are nervous on our first day of school…and he knows when we are spiritually lonely. The Nativity Scene…Christmas…God with us means that God knows…and that…in my estimation…makes all the difference. We can withstand almost any difficulty if we know that He knows what we’re going through. In fact…if we know that He knows how hard it is…we might even gladly embrace the difficulties of life…as they did…running from an angry king…into the danger of the desert through rough and probably hostile territory. Their literal journey is our metaphoric journey. And at Christmas we come to know that God is with us on that journey. Praised be Jesus Christ now and forever!